Democrats are in a ton of trouble when it comes to their own voters, as support for the party has fallen to historic lows.
A report from Politico, which dug into the recent polls, showed disaster for the Democrats, with the news organization saying the left-wing party should be “very afraid.”
“Congressional Democrats have typically enjoyed higher popularity with their voting base than their Republican counterparts. But the trauma of the 2024 presidential election defeat appears to have ruptured that relationship. A review of Quinnipiac University’s annual first-quarter congressional polling reveals that, for the first time in the poll’s history, congressional Democrats are now underwater with their own voters in approval ratings,” Politico said.
The poll showed that 49 percent of Democrat voters disapprove of congressional Democrats while only 40 percent approve.
It is even worse when juxtaposed to last year when 75 percent of their voters approved of them while only 21 percent disapproved.
Politico compared the Democrat collapse to that of the Republican Party before Donald Trump and the MAGA movement came along on the heels of the Tea Party movement that preceded it.
What is worse for Democrats is that their voters do not know if they want to move left or right. A recent Gallup poll showed that 45 percent want the party to be more moderate, whereas 29 percent preferred a more liberal approach, and 22 percent wanted to keep the status quo.
The anger with the party from its voters is that there does not appear to be the same effort to “resist” Trump as there was during his first term.
This all came to a head when Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York and other Democrats voted for cloture on a government funding bill that allowed Republicans to pass the legislation.
The report suggests that longtime Democratic leaders could face serious challenges during the primary season, as incumbents could lose to a new candidate.
“There are 13 Democratic-held Senate seats up for reelection next year — many of them involving veteran senators in the bluest states — raising the prospect of a stream of younger, insurgent candidates more closely aligned with the party base, similar to what the GOP has contended with over the past 15 years,” Politico said.
“A handful of liberal groups have already called for Chuck Schumer to step down as party leader after voting last week for a GOP stopgap funding bill. Democratic House members have also felt the sting of grassroots rage in recent days at town halls marked by testy exchanges with deeply frustrated liberal constituents,” the outlet added.
Schumer has not had the support of some in his party that he used to be able to count on, Politico noted further.
He was criticized by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for his controversial vote with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown.
During a press conference in San Francisco, Pelosi stated that she was confident Schumer would be able to lead the Senate’s Democratic caucus moving forward. However, she contended that the Brooklyn Democrat had made too many compromises to Republicans when he suddenly declared that he would vote to move the government funding bill that the GOP had crafted.
“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi said. “I think that’s what happened the other day.”
“We could have, in my view, perhaps gotten [Republicans] to agree to a third way,” Pelosi stated, alluding to a desperate plan by congressional Democrats to prolong the current government spending for 30 days while they engage in discussions on a more comprehensive bill.
“They may not have agreed to it, but at least the public would have seen them not agreeing to it — then [Republicans] would have been shutting the government down,” Pelosi argued.
Pelosi pleaded with Senate Democrats hours before last week’s vote to defy Schumer and vote against the six-month spending bill.